The present invention relates to an apparatus for feeding packaging machines with stacks of sheet material, in particular cardboard cutouts for rigid cigarette packets.
As known, cigarette packaging machines are fed with stacks of cardboard cutouts intended to constitute the outer container of the packets.
The stacks of cardboard cutouts are arranged on a belt conveyor which advances with a stepwise motion so as to convey said stacks to means which transfer the individual cardboard cutouts to a processing line of the machine.
The stacks of cutouts are currently arranged manually on the input conveyor of the packaging machine.
The conveyor in turn feeds a tank or hopper which feeds a stripper element suitable for separating the individual cutouts to be transferred to the machine processing line.
This feeding system is rather complicated and limits the productivity of the machine, besides entailing a considerable labor cost.